FALL AND THE FARMER'S MARKET

Drawing fall leaves was one of our work choices this morning.  When we ask children to work on vertical surfaces, such as whiteboards and paint easels you may hear teachers talk about proprioception, midline crossing,  pencil grip and hand eye coordination.  Basically this means it helps your child strengthen the muscles in their upper body especially those in their hand and arm.  

We 

One of the  games we have added this week is Shut the box.  You can buy the game for one, two or four players. The goal of the game is to cover up the numbers that correspond to the dots on the dice. The children learn so much from playing dice games.  Most of the students are counting the dice with their finger at present but this will start to change as the year progresses to  them subitizing  (recognizing the number of dots without counting).  

Ms. Lane joined us and worked with the second group on mixing primary colors

Mr. Billadeau initiated a Fall mural on Wednesday afternoon.  We thought our morning children would like the opportunity to add to it.  

A lot of our games are cooperative games.   Harvest time is a cooperative game where students have to harvest their vegetable patch before winter.  If one student has already harvested his tomatoes and he rolls a red dot then he can help one of his friends harvest their patch.  

We made a change in the way our small blocks are being used as we had noticed both classes were not attracted to using them.  Initially we had them split up over 5 days which meant there were less blocks to play with.  

Now we have divided them into two sets.  One set will be open on Monday, the second set will be open on Tuesday.  Our big block section will be open on Wednesday.  Returning to the Monday small block set for Thursday and so on. Allowing students access to more blocks while we  quarantine and disinfect the blocks for the recommended amount of time.

Happily we have already seen an upswing in play in this area..  Students develop so many skills working with blocks.  Math, science, problem solving, spatial awareness, self esteem and self expression, creativity,  and imagination.

At the end of the morning we read Stone Soup retold by Heather Forest.  This will be the first of many versions of this story we will read next week.  Deepening our discussions about how Communities can come together and help each other.  As well as noticing the similarities and differences in each story retold by a different person.

After the story we watched the video of Mr. Andrews visiting the Farmer's market and collecting lots of vegetables and fruits that match our color groups.  We will cook our version of Stone soup on Monday and hopefully get to taste it the same day.

QUESTIONS

Which color group are you in?

Can you think of a fruit or vegetable that matches your color group?

Can you remember a fruit or vegetable we saw Mr. Andrews buy?